EXAMPLE PAGE-EBOOK-CATALOG-Salon Dessin - Flipbook - Page 77
Giovanni Francesco BARBIERI, IL GUERCINO
Landscape
Like most of Guercino’s landscape drawings, this
one does not represent a specific place but is the
fruit of the artist’s imagination. It is also typically
neither preparatory to a painting nor an print, but
was made for its own sake, as a work of art in its
own right.
Inventing many different scenes of this type, which
in many respects resemble paintings rather than
drawings in terms of function and composition, requires an entirely different imaginative process than
that underlying the experimental genesis of Guercino’s figure studies. In the present drawing, the artist
has drawn a fully complete view, using only pen
and brown ink in a style akin to that of an engraver.
Guerchin emphasised the trees and mountain in the
background, indicating the foreground with only a
few pen strokes and adding a few quickly sketched
figures, including a particularly picturesque and
tasty fisherman.
This type of large landscape is difficult to date,
although the present drawing may be related to a
Landscape with a winding road leading to a town
gate, now in Windsor, which bears a date of 1635 on
the verso (D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings
of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the
Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge 1989, no. 247,
fig. 231).
Giovanni Francesco BARBIERI, dit IL GUERCINO (1591-1666)
Christ at the Garden of Olives
A study, with many differences, for a painting now in
the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff (N. Turner,
op. cit., This large canvas could be identified with the
“Christo grande orante nell’orto con l’angelo e apostoli in lontananza“ mentioned in the list of paintings
in the artist’s house at the time of his death (C.C.
Malvasia, Felsina pittrice: vite dei pittori bolognesi,
ed. 1841, II, p.273).
Two other studies for the painting are preserved,
one in red chalk, kept in the Palazzo Rosso Museum in Genoa, the other in pen and ink in a private
collection (N. Turner, op. cit., p. 594).
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Lambert DOOMER ( 1624-1700)
This large drawing copies a sheet by Roelandt Savery
(1576-1639) in the van der Hem atlas of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna (vol. 46, fol. 7-8; P.
van der Krogt and E. de Groot, The atlas Blaeu-Van der
Hem of the Austrian national library: descriptive catalogue of volumes 35-46 of the “Atlas“. Volume V, Africa,
Asia and America, including the “Secret“ Atlas of the
Dutch East India Company, :’t Goy-Houten, 2005, no.
46:06 p. 593, repr.). Doomer has modified the composition somewhat by omitting the far right part of the
Vienna drawing (52 x 40 cm.) and instead extending
the left side, inventing a rocky promontory where two
deer are resting. Similarly, while he faithfully reproduces Savery’s handwriting on the right-hand side, he
gives free rein to his own style on the left-hand side of
the sheet.
After Savery’s death, Rembrandt acquired an album
of the artist’s drawings, which is described in his
inventory of 1656 as ‘A ditto book of drawings from
the Tyrol by Roelant Savery drawn on nature’. It seems
that Doomer bought the album at the sale held after
Rembrandt’s bankruptcy in 1658. Later, van der Hem
acquired fifteen of the drawings in this album and
added them to his famous atlas. In his catalogue of
drawings by Rembrandt and his pupils at the Fondation Custodia, Peter Schatborn lists six copies of Doomer after Savery, all of which are in public collections
(Rembrandt and his circle drawings in the Frits Lugt
collection, Paris, 2010, I, p. 159 under no. 55; see also W.
Schulz, “Doomer and Savery“, Master Drawings, vol.
IX, 1971, pp. 253-259).
Giovanni Domenico TIEPOLO
Part of a group of studies, executed in the same penand-black-ink technique alone, on the theme of the
Passion of Christ, which can be related to the artist’s
first great masterpiece, the Via Crucis in the church
of San Polo in Venice, painted in 1747 and 1748 (A.M.
Mariuz, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Venice, 1971, pl. 2). For
other drawings from this group, see J. Byam Shaw, The
Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London, 1962, p. 35
and pl. 19 and A.M. Gealt and G. Knox, Giandomenico
Tiepolo. Maestria e gioco. Disegni dal mondo, Milan,
1996, no. 78. The subject of the Coronation of Thorns
was again treated by the artist, in 1772, in a painting in
the Prado (A. Mariuz, op. cit., pl. 234) and then, around
1800, in one of the drawings for his famous Illustrated
Bible (A.M. Gealt and G. Knox, Domenico Tiepolo. A
New Testament, Bloomington, 2006, no. 194).
Pompeo BATONI
The Penitent Magadlene
A study for an oval oil on canvas in reverse, now
in a private collection (E.P. Bowron, op. cit., no. 68
pp. 93-94). Edgar Peters Bowron dates the painting
to c. 1745 although he notes that Batoni received
payments for an oval painting of this subject in 1754
from Cardinal Domenico Orsini d’Aragona (17191789).
Pompeo BATONI
Saint Louis Gonzaga
Preparatory to an oil on canvas in oval format executed around 1744 and now in a private collection
(E.P. Bowron, Pompeo Batoni, A complete catalogue
of his paintings, New Haven and London, 2016, no.
64, pp. 79-80).
Jean-Baptiste-Marie PIERRE
Engraved in the same way by Louis-Marin Bonnet
in red chalk manner (J. Hérold, Louis-Marin Bonnet (1736-1793). Catalogue de l’oeuvre gravé, Paris,
1935, no. 172). Bonnet’s engraving was a pendant
to another depicting A House on the River with
a Watermill (N. Lesur and O. Aaron, op. cit., no. D.
246), whose preparatory drawing was also found
after the publication of the catalogue raisonné of
Pierre’s work by Nicolas Lesur and Olivier Aaron.
According to them, the rural atmosphere of the
present drawing “evokes that of the Moulin Joli [in
Colombes, drawn by Pierre, see op. cit., no. D.244],
even if the watermill represented here cannot be
confused with that of Watelet, whose paddle wheel
was placed under the building and on its side“ as in
the present drawing.
Jean BARBAULT
Prepares an etching hitherto considered anonymous, in reality signed left centre on the doorframe
“J. Barbault inv. et sculps. Barbault inv. et sculps.
/1748“ (see M. Gori Sassoli, “La cerimonia della
Chinea, Dal teatro delle corti al popolo festeggiante“,
in M. Faggiolo, La Festa a Roma dal Rinascimento al
1870, Milan, 1997, I, p. 44, fig. 3 as anonymous). The
style of the drawing which can be compared to the
three other known pen-and-ink sheets (D. Jacquot, cat. exp. Jean Barbault (1718-1762). Le théâtre
de la vie italienne, Strasbourg, Musée des beauxarts, 2010, p. 147-151) and its variants with the print
confirm the attribution to Barbault. Chronologically,
this is the first known drawing by the artist, who
moved to the margins of the academic career
when he settled in Rome.
The scene takes place in the Sala Regia in the
Vatican Palace and depicts the presentation of the
Chinea to Pope Benedict XIV by Fabrizio Colonna
(1700-1755), Grand Constable of the Kingdom of
Naples and as such ambassador extraordinary
of the King of the Two Sicilies. At the centre of
the composition is the “haquenée“, a white mare
symbolising loyalty, whose Italian name is used
as a colloquial name for the ceremony. It bears
the arms of Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini on a
canopy of crimson velvet woven in silver and a cup
filled with 6,000 gold ducats, the annual tribute of
the Kingdom of Naples to the Pontiff. Constable
Colonna kneels before Benedict XIV, seated on
the papal throne and surrounded by the Sacred
College, and presents him with the “haquenée“
loaded with the tribute. Accompanied by his
retinue, he has just climbed the Scala Regia to
enter through the door on the left of the drawing,
on whose doorframe the engraving is signed. The
second door, at the far left, leads into the Sistine
Chapel. The scene is therefore drawn from the
south-west corner of the Sala Regia, towards the
northern bays. On either side of the doorway into
which the Scala Regia opens, Barbault sketched
the right-hand side of The Battle of Lepanto and
The Preparations for the Battle of Lepanto painted
by Giorgio Vasari in 1572-1573.
It is unlikely that Barbault had the privilege of attending the ceremony in person, which was reserved
for the highest dignitaries of the pontifical court. On
the other hand, he probably recomposed it while
admiring the procession of the Constable Colonna
through the streets of Rome, the subject of another
unsigned etching whose attribution to Barbault
is made evident by comparison with the second
(H. 259; W. 502 mm at the plate stroke. A proof in
London, The British Museum, inv. 1871,1209.4638.
See Gori Sassoli, op. cit. p. 45, fig. 4). It illustrates, in
a recomposed topography, the sumptuous procession advancing from the Farnese Palace on the left,
crossing the Tiber on the Ponte Sant’Angelo, passing in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo and entering
the Vatican Palace through Bernini’s colonnade, as
described in Chracas’ Diario ordinario (Diario ordinario, no. 4830, 6 July 1748, pp. 5-6).
The “pensionnaires“ of the French Academy in
Rome were often associated with the festivities surrounding the award of the Chinea since its takeover
by the Spanish crown in 1738.
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